Brian Fagan— There really is something to Indiana Jones, except that it’s all wrong. It’s rumored that Jones was an amalgam of several early twentieth century archaeologists, but Lucas Films is firmly mum on the subject. The history of archaeology over the past century-and-a-half is indeed replete with bold exploits
Terry Eagleton— Over half a century ago, in an excellent little book entitled Communications, Raymond Williams outlined a socialist plan for the arts and media which rejected state control of its content on the one hand and the sovereignty of the profit motive on the other. Instead, the active contributors
Charles M. Peters— The traditional method of farming used throughout the tropics is called shifting cultivation, roza, tumba y quema, or slash and burn agriculture. A small plot of forest is felled and burned, and corn, rice, cassava, or a variety of other crops are planted in the ash. These
Stephen Batchelor— Taking photographs and practicing meditation might seem at first glance to be unrelated activities. For while photography looks outward at the visual world through the medium of a camera, meditation focuses inward on unmediated experience. And whereas photography is concerned with producing images of reality, meditation is about
Judson Brewer— In 2010, I went on a monthlong silent retreat with the aim of working on and possibly stabilizing a special c concentration type of meditation practice (jhana) that can be held for hours if practiced correctly. I had been reading about and trying to develop this practice for
Judson Brewer— “Status Update,” an episode of the podcast This American Life, featured three ninth graders talking about their use of Instagram. Instagram is a simple program that lets people post, comment on, and share pictures. Simple but valuable: in 2012, Instagram was bought by Facebook for one billion dollars. The podcast episode began
Joseph Turow— “Bricks and mortar is dead; long live bricks and mortar!” This was the surprising theme that emerged from the sprawling 2014 Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, reported Laura Heller, editor in chief of the online trade magazine FierceRetail. Everybody in retail had previously been emphasizing only the tremendous advantage that
Where do our senses come from and how do they work? What happens when they go wrong? We’ve got the answers to these questions and more with Rob DeSalle from the American Museum of Natural History.
Brandy R. Fogg— Current wolf population management strategies in the U.S are not supported by scientific research and are doing more harm than good. Gordon Haber and Marybeth Holleman’s Among Wolves: Gordon Haber’s Insights into Alaska’s Most Misunderstood Animals brings several issues with current predator management strategies to the light.
Alan Feduccia— Before the astounding recent discoveries of avian and dinosaurian fossils from the Mesozoic of China, the only substantial evidence for the earliest evolution of birds from their reptilian beginnings came from fossil specimens from the approximately 150-million-year-old deposits from the Late Jurassic of Bavaria, specimens known to the